Re: Cyclic variables

• To: hld@xxxxxxxxxxxx, netcdfgroup@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
• Subject: Re: Cyclic variables
• From: pack@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Daniel Packman)
• Date: Mon, 3 Jul 1995 10:33:40 -0600

...
>  I am not aware of any
> common units other than "degrees_east" which should always be treated as
> cyclic, although there may well be some.

I brought up the idea of new datatypes with "base arithmetic" some time
ago and was booed off the stage.  My idea was to have a different "base"
corresponding to each "digit".  Then one could naturally account for
seconds as well as degrees in latitude and longitude as well as deal
with natural units for time (seconds, minutes, hours, days).
The idea of base arithmetic is a natural generalization of cyclic values.